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Atlanta grew on a site occupied by the Creek people, which included a major village called Standing Peachtree. There is some dispute over whether the Creek settlement was called Standing Peachtree or Standing Pitch Tree, corrupted later to peach. Pine trees, common to the area, were also known as pitch trees due to their sap.[1]

A trail known as the Peachtree Trail stretched from northeast Georgia to Standing Pitch Tree along the Chattahoochee River.[2] The original Peachtree Road began in 1812 at Fort Daniel located at Hog Mountain in present-day Gwinnett County and ran along the course of the trail to the Chattahoochee. Some portions of the present road trace this route.

In 1867, the name of Whitehall Street, the original road to White Hall Tavern in today's West End neighborhood, was changed to Peachtree Street from Marietta Street south to the railroad crossing (now "gulch") just north of Alabama Street.[5] Later in the 1980s,[6] the portion of Whitehall Street from Five Points south to Forsyth Street and Memorial Drive, a major shopping district from the Civil War through mid-20th century, was renamed Peachtree Street SE.

The Peachtree name is common throughout the Atlanta area. In fact, it is often joked by natives that half of the streets in Atlanta are named Peachtree, and the other half have five names to make up for it.[citation needed] While “Peachtree” alone almost always refers to this street or its continuations, there are 71 streets in Atlanta with a variant of “Peachtree” in their name.[9] Some of these include:

West Peachtree Street is not a western branch of Peachtree Street, but a major parallel (and unlike Peachtree, almost perfectly straight) due north/south street running one block west of Peachtree Street through downtown, and mostly two or three blocks west (due to the curves in Peachtree Street) through Midtown. West Peachtree divides the northeast and northwest quadrants of the city and county for street addressing purposes.

Where the current Peachtree Street turns to Peachtree Road and briefly heads northwest, it actually crosses West Peachtree, leaving it on the "east" side. It is at this point that the Buford-Spring Connector (Georgia 13) begins, taking the route of old I-85. The studios of WSB-TV are located on this section of “West” Peachtree Street[citation needed], which terminates at I-85. Through this section north of 17th Street in Midtown, and in downtown south of North Avenue to Peachtree Street (and continuing south then southwest on Peachtree to Luckie Street / Auburn Avenue), the MARTA north/northeast line (red and orange/gold trains) runs directly under West Peachtree. Between the two, it runs no more than a block to the east.

From the Buford-Spring Connector north to Roswell Road, Peachtree Street and Peachtree Road carry U.S. 19 and Georgia 9. At a five-way intersection with East/West Paces Ferry Road at the center of the original Buckhead Village, these continue north onto Roswell Road, and Georgia 141 begins on Peachtree instead. South of the connector, 9 and 19 continue on two one-way streets: West Peachtree Street northbound and Spring Street southbound.

Peachtree meets Piedmont Road (Georgia 237) between Buckhead Village and Lenox Square. Besides the southwestern terminus of Georgia 13 (mentioned above) the only other major intersection in Atlanta is at North Avenue, which carries Georgia 8, U.S. 29, U.S. 78, and U.S. 278.

Although most have been demolished, there are still several historic buildings left along Peachtree in Buckhead. Several of these are stores, in single-story brick buildings constructed well before the annexation of Buckhead in 1952.

Northeast of the city limit, the road goes through Brookhaven and passes Oglethorpe University. Upon entering Chamblee, the road splits into Peachtree Industrial Boulevard and Peachtree Road. Peachtree Road becomes a two-lane road that travels further east towards Doraville, while Peachtree Industrial Boulevard continues more on a more northerly trajectory (as Georgia 141) towards Dunwoody and Peachtree Corners.

Atlantans are often convinced that the ridge followed by Peachtree Street is part of the Eastern Continental Divide. While Peachtree Street is atop a ridge, railroadtracks were built on the actual Eastern Continental Divide, which follows DeKalb Avenue from Decatur to Five Points, then turns southwest toward the Atlanta airport, with the northwest side draining into the Chattahoochee or Flint Rivers and therefore into the Gulf of Mexico, and the southeast side eventually into the Atlantic Ocean. In 1959, Whitehall Street SW, which meets Peachtree Street NE at Five Points, was renamed "Peachtree Street SW", and the Eastern Continental Divide follows this street, so a small portion of the story may be technically correct. Atlanta's primary water source is the Chattahoochee and much of the water is pumped over the watershed. To balance the river flows, treated sewage is pumped back to the Chattahoochee.